


butterflies

by connorswhisk



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, let’s go lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-10-01 20:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20388607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/connorswhisk/pseuds/connorswhisk
Summary: “No, no, it’s just an expression. When you have Butterflies In Your Stomach, you feel sort of...jumpy in there, like actual butterflies are flying around and trying to get out. You can feel it when you’re nervous about something, or when you like someone.”





	butterflies

Losing Hopper is the worst thing that’s ever happened to El.

Yeah, she’s had a rough life overall. For the majority of it, she’d been locked up in a lab and experimented on like a _guinea pig._

_Guinea pig (noun): A tailless South American rodent of the cavy family._

Papa was a bad man. And he did bad things. And then there was Kali, the sister El hardly remembered. And the tank. And the Demogorgon. And then Mike. And Lucas. And Dustin. And Will. Joyce, and Nancy, and Jonathan.

And then the next year there was Steve. And there was Billy, and El hated him like she hated Papa. But there was also Max. El liked Max.

And of course, there was Hop. El had thought there was always going to be Hop, watching after her, eating Eggos with her and getting fat because of it, putting on his dumb records and dancing along, looking like an idiot. Telling her new words to write down in her notebook and watching old Western movies on the TV with her and constantly reminding her to _keep the door open three inches._

But now Hop is gone. And it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair, _it isn’t fair!_ Hop was supposed to be like Papa, but Good, a Good man. He was supposed to protect El always and forever. But now he’s gone, and El has _transferred_

_Transfer (verb):_  
_1\. Move from one place to another._  
_2\. Change to another place, route, or means of transportation during a journey._

to live with Will and Joyce and Jonathan. It’s not bad. Will is like a brother, and Jonathan shows her cool music, and Joyce, Joyce understands most of all, because she loved Hop as much as El did, just in a different way.

Even though she misses Hop, it’s still a nice couple of months. Everyone is very sad, but El has so many people to lean on that it gets a little easier every day. Everybody keeps living. El hangs out with her friends, and sometimes she sees Steve and his friend Robin. They all go to the pool and throw rocks down in the quarry, and Mike and Will teach El how to play Dungeons and Dragons, and she gets to be a Mage, even if her Powers still don’t work.

But something doesn’t feel right. And El realizes that that something is Mike.

They used to work together. El thought he was the best thing to happen to her. He was sweet, and he let her stay in his house, and he fed her Eggos and told her about new words and stuff.

When El had gone missing, and when Hop had found her, she had tried to talk to Mike every night. Sometimes it would work. She’d be able to hear him, and he was also looking for her, and that made El’s face turn red in a good way. But she could never talk back to him. Then, when they found each other again, they were finally happy together.

They’d spent so long together, in El’s room _making out,_

_Making out (verb): Slang for kissing, or engaging in sexual activity._

and El didn’t think she would ever be happier than she was when she was doing that.

It turns out she was right. She hasn’t gotten happier. In fact, now she dreads seeing Mike. Ever since she had Dumped His Ass, and Max had told her that she didn’t need a boyfriend to feel good about herself, El has been feeling worse and worse about their relationship.

Mike says he Loves her. But El isn’t sure if she Loves him.

Since Starcourt Mall is gone, El spends a lot of time at the video store where Steve and Robin work now. She often brings Dustin or Max along with her. Dustin knows a lot of movies that she doesn’t (though most people do, because El hasn’t seen many movies), and he tells her which ones she should rent with the _allowance_

_Allowance (verb): Give someone a sum of money regularly._

Joyce gives her. Steve and Robin let her stick around, because they like her and they get to tell her about movies. Sometimes they let her take out the new movies before anyone else, when new ones have just come in.

El likes going to the video store, and she likes going to the arcade with Will, but she likes going swimming the most. Before Starcourt was gone, Max took El to go shopping for a bathing suit, and it had been so much fun. El likes shopping, but she likes Max more, and wearing the cute one-piece Max had said would look Pretty on her makes her feel so good about herself.

And Mike wasn’t even there to make her feel like that.

El was unsure of the pool at first, because Billy had worked there, but Max said that it was time to move on, and they’d have so much fun that they wouldn’t even notice.

And Max was right, because going to the pool is El’s favorite thing to do. Sometimes they all go, but it’s usually just El and Max, and Max teaches her how to swim, and they splash each other, and they eat ice pops from the snack bar, and Max promises that someday she’ll take El to California and they’ll go surfing together. El smiles big, because that sounds like a lot of fun. And she turns red (in a good way) when she sees Max in her bathing suit, though she doesn’t know _why._

Halfway through August, Max and Lucas break up.

“You...Dumped His Ass?” El asks. She’s confused. Max and Lucas hadn’t been _fighting_ or anything.

Max smiles a little. “No, El,” she says. “I didn’t Dump His Ass. You only do that when you’re mad at the person you’re breaking up with. Lucas and I weren’t mad at each other, we just...don’t like-like each other anymore. Do you get it?”

El nods, because she _does_ get it. “Like me and Mike,” she says without thinking. Max stops in the middle of braiding her hair and stares at El.

“Wait...you don’t like Mike anymore?” Max asks, disbelief obvious in her tone. El flushes under her gaze.

“Well...I don’t think so. Ever since I Dumped His Ass, I haven’t really...” she trails off.

“But you haven’t told him, have you?” Max asks. “He still likes you.” El nods.

“I don’t know how to...how to...,” she says, and slams her hands down on the bed in frustration. Max laces her fingers with her own quickly, sitting on the bed next to El and letting her unfinished braid dangle next to her face. El suddenly feels dizzy for no reason.

“I know,” Max says, looking into El’s eyes. “It’s hard. It was hard for me and Lucas. But if you just sit down and talk to Mike about it, it’ll be ok. If anything bad happens, you just keep your cool, and then he’ll be the only one being a baby. Besides, he can’t just refuse to break up with you.”

El grimaces. “I know. But I don’t want to hurt him,” she says.

“Well,” Max says thoughtfully. “It’s not your fault that you don’t like him anymore. And if that hurts his feelings, then that’s just how it is. It’ll be ok in the end, I promise.”

And El nods, though she still feels uncertain about the whole thing.

She doesn’t break up with Mike for another week. When she does, it’s at her house, in her room, surrounded by posters of The Clash (from Jonathan) and Madonna (from Max). The radio plays a song that El doesn’t recognize, but she feels like it’s something Will would listen to. She fidgets nervously on the bed. Mike grins at her and starts to lean in, and she -

“Mike,” she breathes, backing away. He frowns.

“What’s wrong?”

“I want to talk to you,” El says, swallowing. Mike looks confused, but he leans back against the wall and looks at her expectantly.

“Mike...last year,” El pauses. “Last year was...really amazing. You’re sweet, and you’ve always been nice to me. I wanted - I wanted to thank you for that.”

Mike nods. “Of course,” he says. “Thank _you_, El. You’re an awesome girlfriend.”

El’s throat tightens. “You’ve been an awesome boyfriend. But...”

Mike dips his head. “But...?” He looks so _apprehensive_

_Apprehensive (adjective): Anxious or fearful that something bad or unpleasant will happen._

and El is so, so scared to tell him anything that she just starts crying. Mike stares at her and goes in to hug her, but she pulls away.

“El,” Mike says, a panicked expression on his face. “El, what’s wrong?” El shakes her head.

“I’m sorry,” she sobs from behind her hands. “I’m sorry, Mike.” Mike runs his hands through his hair.

“El, whatever it is you need to tell me, just say it, ok? Just say it.” El wipes her eyes, and takes a slow, shuddering, deep breath.

“I don’t like you anymore,” she gushes. “I don’t want to be your girlfriend. M’sorry, Mike, sorry, _sorry, I’m so sorry._”

An awful silence follows. By the time El gathers enough courage to peek through the cage of her fingers, she can see that Mike isn’t crying. He isn’t moving. He’s just sitting there, looking surprised, and (El thinks, later) kind of stupid.

“You-You what?” Mike asks quietly. El sobs again.

“I don’t want to be your girlfriend, Mike. I don’t Love you,” she says, and maybe this is too much, because Mike sort of

Snaps.

“What the hell do you mean?” he yells. El recoils slightly. “What do you _mean_? You don’t Love me? Why not? I Love you! I _care_ about you, El! Why?”

“Mike, it’s ok - “ El starts to say.

“No, El, it’s not ok! We’ve been so happy together! I helped you, you saved me, we had something special between us! I was the _only_ one who kept trying to find you when you were gone! Me! No one else! And - “

He’s crying now, too.

“And now you’re telling me you just want to throw all that away? _Why_, El?”

“I,” El chokes through her tears. “I don’t know - “ Mike stands up off the bed and crosses to the door, lays a hand on the knob.

“You know what?” he says. “Never mind. I don’t even want to hear it.” He wrenches the door open.

“_Goodbye, El._”

And he storms out.

Jonathan comes in a minute later, because Joyce is still at work, and El can hear Will outside calling after Mike. Jonathan sits next to her, and he opens his arms, and he doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t need to. El hugs him tightly and wails into his chest, and he rubs her back soothingly and smooths her hair, and they stay like that for a while, until Will comes in and engulfs El from the other side.

And it’s a terrible, terrible moment, one of the worst El’s ever had, but in this moment, she truly feels part of a family.

And now things with Mike are weird, things with Mike are _awkward_

_Awkward (adjective):_  
_1\. Causing difficulty; hard to do or deal with._  
_2\. Causing or feeling embarrassment or inconvenience._

and El doesn’t like it. She still hangs out with everybody at once, but she and Mike don’t talk to each other, and Mike is sort of ignoring her completely. The others know about the breakup, but they don’t say anything, because they know that would make everything more _awkward._

The time that El used to spend with Mike on date night is now spent with Max at the arcade, or sleeping over with Max. Even though El still feels bad about Mike, she has a lot of fun with Max, even more than she used to. She doesn’t feel bad whenever Max makes her laugh anymore, like she’s sneaking and doing something Mike wouldn’t like (she still doesn’t know why she feels like this, though).

Max is El’s Best Friend. But she doesn’t feel like a Best Friend like Dustin and Lucas do. Something’s different about her and Max’s relationship. She isn’t sure what.

Max is so sweet to El, that El wonders why she ever hated her in the first place. Then she realizes she hated Max because _Mike_ hated Max, and she thought Max was getting in their way. Now she understands how stupid she had been, and her face turns red (in a bad way) when she thinks about it. But Max doesn’t even seem to care.

She just smiles and laughs and shows El how to braid hair, and she buys her makeup and reads her Wonder Woman comics, and she grabs El’s hands and pulls her to her feet to dance to the radio with her, and it’s a lot better than when El would listen to the radio with Mike, and all he would want to do was kiss, and then he’d start singing and El wouldn’t like it. Max is nicer, and if El doesn’t like something, she stops doing it. She knows so much about clothes and pop stars and boys (though El thinks she’s over boys for a while), and she always tells El how beautiful she looks, in a way that makes El’s stomach feel weird, in a way that sort of tickles. And all El wants to do is tell Max that she looks beautiful, too, because she does, with her hair that looks like fire and her blue eyes and her fun clothes. But every time El opens her mouth to say it, she can never seem to get the words out.

One day El is at the video store with Max. They spend all day making up stories from the covers of all the tapes, and teaming up with Robin to throw balls of paper at Steve when he isn’t looking. When it gets close to the time that the store closes, El walks outside with Max as Max straps on her helmet.

“I had fun today,” Max says, grinning as she sets her skateboard down on the ground. El sort of knows how to skate too, because Max has been teaching her, and El always feels jumpy for some reason when Max puts her arms around her to steady her.

“I had fun, too,” El says, smiling back.

“Do you want to sleepover tomorrow?” Max asks. “Tomorrow’s Friday, so I won’t have to go to school the next day and we can hang.”

El nods automatically. “Yes. Let’s do that.”

Max grins again. “Ok. I’ll see you tomorrow, then, El.” She steps onto her board and pushes off the ground, skating away.

“Bye, Max!” El calls after her. Max raises her hand in response. El watches her until she zooms around the corner, and then she sits down on the curb with her chin in her hands. She still has time before she has to be home for _curfew_

_Curfew (noun): A regulation requiring people to remain indoors between specified hours, typically at night._

and dinner. She doesn’t know what she’ll do, probably get Steve to drive her home once he comes out.

She focuses on a crushed Coke can lying in the gutter. Stares at it. Blocks out all other sounds. Doesn’t blink. Feels her brain and tries to get it to do that sort of

F L E X

Nothing.

El sighs and kicks the can farther away from her. Her Powers still won’t come back to her, no matter how hard she tries. Now she’s just a normal girl.

Maybe she’s supposed to be.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the sound of Robin arguing with Steve about if Superman or Captain America is a better superhero (El knows the answer is Wonder Woman). Steve continues to talk even while he jams the keys into the door’s lock and twists them to the side. Robin calls something after him as he walks away, and Steve holds up a single finger in response. El giggles a little, because Dustin had told her what _that finger_ means.

Robin cackles to herself as she turns to walk to her bike in the other direction, and pauses when she sees El sitting there. She smiles down at her and sits down next to her, knocking her knees with El’s.

“Hey,” Robin says. “What’s up, El-o?” El shrugs.

“Max and I are going to have a sleepover tomorrow night,” El says.

“Cool,” Robin says. El nods. Then she frowns.

“Robin...,” she says, the thought only just occurring to her. “Are you and Steve...is Steve your boyfriend?”

Robin blinks. Then she laughs loudly, but it isn’t mean laughing. It’s nice laughing.

“No,” she says, smiling still. “He’s just my friend.”

El nods. “Sorry,” she says. Robin shakes her head.

“No, it’s ok. A lot of people think that. It’s kind of funny, because Steve isn’t really my Type.”

“Type?” El asks, confused.

“Type. It’s sort of like, what kind of person you like. Like, who you’d want to date and stuff,” Robin explains. “Steve isn’t my Type.”

El shifts slightly. “So...what is your Type?”

Robin’s mouth opens. She looks away from El, and she isn’t smiling.

“My Type...my Type isn’t Steve,” she says, laughing slightly. “I don’t really like boys like that.”

El looks at her quizzically. Robin stares back blankly, and then smacks a hand to her forehead, eyes wide.

“Never mind!” she yelps, laughing uncomfortably. “It’s nothing.”

“Robin,” El says slowly. “What does it mean?” Robin looks at her, and she looks a little scared. Why is she scared?

“Well,” Robin starts. And then she stops. El nods to tell her that it’s ok. Robin takes a deep breath.

“Some people...some girls don’t like boys. And some boys don’t like girls.”

“Then...who do they like?” El asks, frowning.

“They, uh. Some girls like other girls. And some boys like other boys.”

El blinks once. Twice.

How...?

“That’s...allowed?” El asks. Robin nods.

“Well, yeah. I don’t like Steve, because I don’t like guys. I like girls.” She looks at El like El will get mad at her.

“What?” El asks.

“Not everyone likes that about me. Not everyone thinks that girls should like girls and boys should like boys.”

El frowns deeply. “Why not?”

Robin shrugs, and she looks angry. “I don’t know. It’s stupid.” She looks over at El. “You don’t think it’s bad, do you?”

El shakes her head, hard. “No. I think it’s good,” she says quickly. “What - What is it called? When you like girls?”

“It’s called being Gay. But that’s for boys who like boys, usually. Girls who like girls are called Lesbians,” Robin says.

“Less-bee-ans,” El says, sounding the word out. She thinks that she’ll have to write it down in her notebook later.

Something is clicking into place in her brain.

“So,” El says, face turning red (she can’t tell if it’s in a good or bad way). “How do you know if...if...”

“If you’re a Lesbian?” Robin asks, and her voice takes on a softer tone as she looks at El. “El, do you think you might be one?”

El shrugs helplessly, staring at the ground. Her face feels_ hot._

“Well,” Robin says. “For me, I started to feel things when I was around certain girls. It felt like how people say girls should feel about boys. Like Butterflies In My Stomach.”

El frowns. “Why would you have butterflies in your stomach?” She glances at Robin’s stomach warily, as if something might pop out of it.

Robin laughs. “No, no, it’s just an expression. When you have Butterflies In Your Stomach, you feel sort of...jumpy in there, like actual butterflies are flying around and trying to get out. You can feel it when you’re nervous about something, or when you like someone.”

El blinks. Another thing clicks into place.

_Butterflies..._

“So what I feel around Max,” she says. “It’s ok that it’s the same way I felt around Mike?”

Robin looks at her, surprised. “Yeah,” she says, eyes wide. “I didn’t know you felt that way, but yeah. It’s ok, El.”

El swallows thickly. This is all so new and unfamiliar to her.

“So I’m a...Lesbian?” she asks. Robin shrugs.

“You’re whatever you want to be,” she says. “You can like girls _and_ boys at the same time.”

El nods. “Ok,” she whispers. Then, she throws her arms around Robin. It’s the first time she’s ever hugged her, and Robin tenses a little, but she quickly melts into it and hugs El back.

“Thank you,” El murmurs into Robin’s chest.

“No problem, El,” Robin says softly, patting her on the back.

All of a sudden, El hangs out with Max, and it’s _different._ She knows now. She knows why she feels how she does around Max, and she knows that it’s good to feel that way.

She just doesn’t know if Max is the same.

But El hangs out with Max anyway, and she gets Butterflies In Her Stomach, and she laughs and she hugs Max and learns how to skateboard and she plays Truth or Dare, and it’s just so_ fun._

She hangs out with the rest of The Party, and plays as her Mage, and eats nachos with Dustin, and beats high scores at the arcade with Will, and listens to whatever songs Lucas tells her are good, and she learns how to use a camera with Jonathan, and Joyce lets her come to work with her sometimes, and she goes shopping with Nancy, and she hangs out with Steve and Robin, and things are still awkward with Mike but she knows that it will all be fine, and she has sleepovers with Max, and makeovers with Max, and dances with Max, and Max, Max, Max, and she never wants this to end.

And then Joyce says they’re moving.

And suddenly El’s world starts to come crashing down. Because Hawkins is the only thing she’s ever known. All of her friends live here. The video store is here, the arcade is here, _Max_ is here. She _can’t_ leave.

But on a crisp autumn Sunday in October, they’re packing up the last of the boxes.

Jonathan stays with Nancy in his room, to say goodbye. Robin and Steve had already dropped by earlier to say their last farewells (they had both hugged El for a long time, and it was nice and warm). Will and Mike are finishing up Will’s room, Joyce is in the kitchen, Lucas and Dustin are teasing each other as they work on the living room, and El is just taping the last box of her things shut when Max comes into her room.

“Hey,” Max says, quietly shutting the door behind her. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much.” Her throat feels dry, like a desert.

Max crosses over to where the bed used to be and sits on the floor, patting the spot next to her. El joins her, feeling _skittish_

_Skittish (adjective): excitable or easily scared._

already. Max slowly rests her hand on top of El’s, fingers dancing like feathers across her skin. It makes El feel dizzy.

“I’m going to miss you,” Max says, looking at their now entwined fingers. “A lot, El. A lot.”

El breathes out carefully. “I’m going to miss you, too,” she says, and she’s embarrassed to hear that her voice is thick with tears. They start to spill down her cheeks, and she shakes violently, trying not to make a sound.

“Oh, El,” Max says, and she pulls her close to her body, sliding an arm up to play with the hair at the back of El’s head as El sobs into her chest.

They don’t move for what feels like forever (and El wishes it could be). Max’s chest is warm and her fingers thread through El’s hair carefully, making sure not to snag at any tangles. The rise and fall of her chest helps El to calm herself, syncing her own breaths with Max’s. Finally, El pulls back. She knows she should, but _oh,_ she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to.

El swipes a hand under her nose and sniffles. Max leans back as well, and her eyes are wet, her face pink. El hadn’t even realized she’d been crying, too.

“I’m sorry,” El whispers hoarsely. Max shakes her head.

“You don’t have to apologize.”

Though El realizes she does.

“No. I am sorry, Max.” Max looks at her, confused, eyes red and puffy.

“Why?”

“Because,” she says, breathing deep. “I was Bad to you. A Bad person. When I first met you. You wanted to be my friend. And I...I ignored you. I was _mean_. And you’re still my friend. Why are you still my friend? Why were you _ever_ my friend?”

She tries not to, but a fresh wave of tears surfaces. So she buries her face in her hands and breathes shakily, scared that when she looks up, Max will hate her, that she’ll remember how Bad El had been to her and hate her, hate her and not want to be her friend anymore, and El will never get to feel those Butterflies again.

It’s silent for five seconds, fifteen seconds, thirty, and El is so, so afraid of what will happen when she opens her eyes.

She waits for the yelling to start.

But it doesn’t.

Instead, El feels hands on her own, the same soft hands as before. And then those hands are pulling El’s fingers away from her face, and before she can open her eyes, there’s a tingling sensation on her lips.

El sits there, frozen, until Max leans back.

“Thank you,” Max says softly. “For apologizing. But you didn’t have to, El. I’ve never stopped wanting to be your friend, and I never will.”

El blinks slowly, still trying to understand what just happened. “So you don’t...you don’t...hate me?”

“No. I could never hate you, El.” Her voice is so, so soft, and it surrounds El from all sides.

“Max...,” El breathes. She reaches out across the floor tentatively, shyly. Max meets her halfway and pulls El’s hand up to cup her face, keeping hers firmly on top.

Max slowly moves forward and puts her other hand on El’s cheek, brushing the hair back gently. El’s heart beats faster, pounding.

“Butterflies,” El says. Max knits her eyebrows.

“What?”

“That’s what I feel when I’m with you. Butterflies In My Stomach,” El whispers.

“Oh.”

And Max kisses her again, slow and sweet and soft, and it’s better than being kissed by Mike, it’s better than anything El has ever felt before.

She kisses back.

When they finally break apart, breathing hard, Max points her gaze downward, a sad look in her Pretty eyes.

“What’s wrong?” El asks.

“Just...” Max takes a deep breath. “Make sure to call me, ok? I want to hear from you.”

El pecks Max’s lips. “Yes. I will. I will, Max. Promise.” Max nods.

“Thank you.”

This time, Max puts her tongue on El’s. El never liked it when Mike did that, she thought it felt weird and squishy. But with Max...she likes it. She wants to do it more. As much as possible.

“El,” Max says, and El clambers into her lap and rests her hands on her shoulders, kissing her and kissing her. Max puts her hands on El’s waist. And El wants it more and more.

She knows that eventually they’ll have to stop, and leave the room. El will have to put her things in the big truck in the driveway, and Max will have to hug her goodbye, and El will have to go, leaving Max behind. And she doesn’t want to do that.

But for now she has Max, and Max’s hair, and Max’s hands, and Max’s eyes, and Max’s lips. And she doesn’t want it to stop.

_Max Mayfield (noun): One of the Best Friends ever. A Good person. Good at skateboarding. Has Wonder Woman comics and Madonna posters, and gives them to El. Listens to the radio and dances with her to it. Goes shopping with El. Buys cute clothes. Has blue eyes and red hair. Pretty. Smiles and laughs. Teaches El how to skateboard, and will teach El how to surf someday. Stays up late and talks on the phone. Tells El new words for her notebook. Tells El to be herself. Kisses softly. Really good at kissing. Kisses El. El’s girlfriend._

_El’s girlfriend._

**Author's Note:**

> gay rights


End file.
